biden stowed have given up his push to raise the estate tax. democrats are trying to delay spending cuts until 2015 and republicans are demanding more spending cuts to offset extended unemployment benefits and farm subsidies. lot of ground to make up. but mcconnell says his decision to reach out to biden was a good one. >> the vice president and i worked together on solutions before and i believe we can again. i want my colleagues to know that we'll keep everyone updated, the consequences of this are too high for the american people to be engaged in a political mess. i'm interested in getting a result here. >> there is no indication when the talks will resume today and neither biden nor mcconnell is predicting an agreement before midnight. but the conventional wisdom is that there is no great harm in going a few days into the new year, as long as the markets don't tank and it might even be politically easier to reach a deal after that. clayton, dave? >> juliet: thanks, we appreciate it. at issue, try to get information out of these closed door